UC appeals CRISPR patent ruling

A University of California group is appealing a ruling in a patent interference proceeding to determine ownership of IP related to CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing technology. The university said it expects to "establish definitively" that its scientists were the first to engineer the gene editing technology for use in all environments.

In February, the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) ruling terminated the interference proceeding, which could have blocked a patent held by The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and co-inventor Feng Zhang. PTAB found that a patent application from the Regents of the University of California, the University of Vienna and Emmanuelle Charpentier covers distinct subject matter from the Broad Institute's IP, and determined that each is patentable separately (see BioCentury Extra, Feb. 15)...